Supply Chain Insights

Trust & Verify – Best Practices: Financial Due Diligence and the Outsourcing of Freight Bill Audit and Payment

There are billions of dollars circulated globally for the movement of goods. Transportation costs can be higher than any other expense. It is critical that companies carefully choose their freight payment provider. Performing due diligence on the vendor’s financials not only protects the company’s funds, but also reassures they’ll not lose money and be indebted to any carrier. This whitepaper highlights a number of steps that can be taken to ensure a successful relationship, and protect and minimize the financial risk to the outsourcer.

Globally Local: The New Face of Right-Shoring

There is a revolution in today’s supply chain as global corporations find more risk than reward in manufacturing thousands of miles away from customers. As a result, companies are shifting toward globally local supply chain operations or "right-shoring." In this whitepaper, Exel explores right-shoring, highlighting what it means for supply chain operations across geographies and industries.

Gaining a Competitive Advantage: The Need for Global Management of Mission-Critical Service Parts

As corporate budgets shrink, spending on high-tech equipment decreases, challenging high-tech manufacturers and service providers with greater demands on repair and maintenance. A reliable supply chain is essential for parts availability to meet aggressive service level agreements (SLAs), especially for mission-critical systems. Learn why organizations are enlisting outside experts to establish a comprehensive service parts logistics strategy, encompassing a global IT platform, real-time visibility and flexible scalability.

Evaluating Your Inbound Supply Chain

How is your supply chain performing? The inability to do the necessary supply chain analysis can have consequences, both financially and operationally. Smart companies follow a repeatable, consistent approach that determines whether a change can be implemented, and identifies the associated risks. Download Evaluating Your Inbound Supply Chain to discover our process for evaluating supply chains.

Inbound Transportation Management and Control: Low Hanging Fruit and How to Grab It

When it comes to managing your transportation program, the overriding theme must be control, yet many organizations have not applied the same efforts to inbound transportation management as they have to outbound management, making it a great opportunity for efficiency and cost savings. This whitepaper will identify and discuss the most important, perhaps simplest of steps necessary, to improve Inbound Transportation Management, as well as the opportunities that this improvement will yield.

Border Hassles That Can Put the Canadian Market Out of Reach: What Your Business Should Know

This whitepaper discusses regulatory and logistical hurdles U.S. businesses must be aware of when shipping across the U.S./Canadian border. These challenges must be understood and addressed as part of the cross-border experience. Transporting goods into Canada is a complicated process. Regulations and protocols are constantly changing and U.S. businesses must entrust their Canadian-bound shipments to a qualified logistics provider that ensures shipments are afforded every trade enhancement, priority clearance review, and duty/ tax reduction to which they are entitled.

2012 Temperature-Controlled Transportation Report

This study, based on a survey of North American shippers, examines the top challenges faced in temperature-controlled transportation. It provides interesting insights and information about best practices, common challenges, and emerging trends in today’s temperature-controlled market. The report is provided by RWI Transportation, an asset-based logistics company offering temperature-controlled transportation. RWI manages in excess of 100,000 shipments annually, including both temperature-controlled and dry freight.

Logistics Flow Control: Gaining Command of the Inbound Supply Chain

Retailers want their goods to seamlessly flow through their distribution network. To meet retailers’ inbound supply chain needs, Descartes created Logistics Flow Control, a comprehensive, cloud-based, multi-party solution that spans the entire process to collaboratively bring together all of the parties to simultaneously manage commercial, logistics and customs inbound processes.

Adopting a Values-Driven Corporate Culture to Create Resiliency

The present economy has served as a reminder that there are no guarantees in business. Many companies are finding themselves struggling to stay afloat, and many are sinking. In better economic days, a company could survive with a moderate profit margin achieved through dedicated attention to its bottom line. Focusing on values increases performance levels, improves service, reduces employee variability, and supports sustainability.

The Perfect Labor Management Storm – Steering Clear of Driver Hazards, Cost Damage, and Areas of Poor Visibility

Growing pressures including driver shortages, HOS regulations, and increasing competition are causing capacity shortages and escalating costs, cutting into already razor-thin profit margins. While some issues, such as weak economic recovery and rising fuel prices, are out of your control, labor is not. Discover how labor management solutions can help you optimize your labor resources by uncovering hidden capacity, consistently enforcing attendance and safety policies, improving hiring efficiency, and controlling costs to boost profit margins. Download this whitepaper today!

Going Global: Building a Sustainable Logistics Model in the Age of Globalization

Globalization has created boundless opportunities for both large and small companies around the world and has also ushered in a more competitive business environment. This C.H. Robinson whitepaper reviews the essential areas of expertise that a company must master in transportation and logistics in order to capitalize on these opportunities. Topics include:

• Understanding globalization and the changing world.
• Global transportation essentials.
• Why global business requires a global TMS.

Rethinking Your Reslotting Strategy

This whitepaper focuses on the elements that go into achieving a solid reslotting strategy. Slot maintenance performed in sync with distribution center dynamics helps achieve optimal slotting. Leveraging opportunities such as product volume and mix changes, seasonal demands, and promotions allows for reslotting that increases picking efficiency. Identifying inflection points and reslotting at the appropriate time using underutilized labor at standard rates minimizes costs and improves payback cycles. Once a company determines its slotting strategy and establishes business rules, it can employ slotting technology to achieve a reslotting strategy that minimizes costs and optimizes efficiency. Find out more by downloading this free whitepaper.

Inventory in Motion: A Direct Alternative to Global Fulfillment

Logistics visionaries have talked for years about eliminating or at least reducing the role of inventory in modern supply chains. What is appealing in this vision is the reduction in logistics costs and the fulfillment cycle. Learn how a direct-to-store or distribution bypass approach to global fulfillment can lead to a leaner supply chain by downloading this free whitepaper today.